Möglichkeiten
by Silverr
Summary: For seven years Duck had known exactly what to expect, because every day was the same: she swam in the pond while Fakir wrote stories. She didn't mind the sameness, though, because she was with Fakir — and he was happy, so she was happy. And then she found a necklace ... *** Written as a pinch hit for Skylark for the Night on Fic Mountain Exchange 2014.
1. Chapter of Leaving the Nest

Princess Tutu is copyright Ikuko Itoh and Hal Master Studios.

The title is the plural of the German word _Möglichkeit,_ which can be be translated as "possibility, opportunity, option."

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**Moglichkeiten**

_by Silverr, (for Skylark)_

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Once upon a time there was a brave knight who, in order to save his king's life, agreed to marry a loathsome hag. Though many urged the knight to break his word and refuse the marriage once the king was safe, the knight would not do so.

As a reward for keeping his word, the hag gave him a choice: she could be young and beautiful in public during the day, or she could be young and beautiful at night in their bedchamber.

If you were the knight, which would _you_ choose?

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Duck is dreaming.

Someone is standing on the water in the center of the pond (this is how Duck knows it's a dream). She can't see the person clearly, but they're very tall, with a calm, gentle voice voice that reminds her of Edel (but it is not Edel). Duck notices that the not-Edel has folded wings that, were they open, would cover the sky (although Duck knows not-Edel isn't a swan either). Duck curtsies, and after a moment tiny lights, like multicolored fireflies, shimmer over the surface of the water, coalescing into floating leaves piled high with delicious things: wriggling blue fish, juicy red berries, succulent roots, tiny pearly snails, golden kernels of corn.

As Duck hurries forward, her feet splashing the shallow water, someone next to her laughs and says, "I don't think even _you _can eat all that, greedy duck." She turns; Fakir is sitting on the shore, dressed in the dark clothes he wore as Prince Siegfried's knight.

Indignant, Duck hops back on the shore, wings akimbo, and pecks at his knee. "Quack!"

_Choose_, not-Edel requests (though no words are spoken).

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It is her favorite thing to do, to swim in the pond while Fakir sits and works nearby. For seven years every day has been like this, but she doesn't mind. She is with Fakir, and he is happy, so she is happy. For seven years he has written stories for Gold Crown Town, small stories that allow those who need a voice to speak through his words. She loves the way Fakir allows the stories to tell themselves whenever possible, only offering a steadying hand when the story wavers. He may be Drosselmeyer's descendant, but he is nothing like his ancestor.

She thinks at times that if Fakir could change his very blood he would. He had at first refused to take anything from from Autor's house except a small pale green wood shaving he'd found in the workshop. Duck understood his reluctance: to use Drosselmeyer's things would be crediting him as the source of his gift, when really talespinning was given by The Tree. (Not that it mattered, really: wherever it came from, it was Fakir's gift now.) However, Duck also didn't think it was good to entirely ignore where you came from — if you didn't know where you started, how could you know where you were going? — and so she'd pecked Fakir's ankles a few times and planted herself in the doorway of Autor's house until Fakir had sighed and taken a single inkwell, saying that it would be useful as a reminder. He had left everything else in the shrine: the tins of blended tea, the pink and yellow cups, the thick ivory paper — even, to Autor's delight, the feather pens and the massive, bloodstained desk. (Of course Fakir hadn't told Autor that he had no need of Drosselmeyer's desk: Karon had made a new desk, of ash and white birch, with cedar-lined drawers in which Fakir stored the pale blue paper Raetsel sent three times a year from the capital. Fakir didn't need Drosselmeyer's bird-feather quills, either, as the town had presented him with a set of silver pens designed by Lysander that, with only one dip in the bottle, took up enough ink to write for half a day.)

Sometimes Duck comes out of the water and sits near enough to Fakir's chair that he can reach down with his free hand and smooth his fingertips along her dorsal feathers as he writes, or gently scratch her neck, or even just rest his palm on her head. She used to think she was distracting him by making him pay attention to her, but he's told her that the feel of her feathers and bones, so delicate and yet so strong, calms and clarifies him. Even when he's very inspired — Duck can always tell when this happens, because he bends forward over the paper while his pen moves as swift and decisive as a rapier — he doesn't remove his hand from her; when this happens Duck sits very still, barely breathing, until he sits back with a sigh.

Only then does she return to the water.

It doesn't always go so well, however. Sometimes Fakir glowers at the trees, shifts restlessly in his chair, pulls at his hair, crumples the writing paper into a ball. When this happens Duck will gently nip at his ankle until he slides the writing tray aside and lifts her onto his lap, calling her "Duck the feathered cat." When she lifts her wings to preen he always tries to tickle her, and she always pretends to be offended, catching his wrist in her bill and giving it a light squeeze before settling down to nap.

In this way they had lived companionably for seven years.

One midsummer day, while Duck was nibbling some delicious new water sprouts at the bottom of the pond, she saw a flash of light. Curious, she dove toward it. A glint of silvery-blue arabesqued through the mud; when she poked at it with her bill she saw it was a delicate chain. Carefully, she pulled it from the muck until there was enough free for her to dive and twist under the chain and get it around her neck, then she swam for the surface. This necklace was very different than the one she had worn years ago; the chain was so long that the pendant of pale green stone knocked against her knees.

"What's that?" Fakir asked as she scrambled out of the water and ran to him. "It looks like — " He stopped, looking horrified for a moment and then very sad.

Duck knew that look, although she had seen it less and less often over the years. She should have known that the necklace would bring out the memories, but really, deep down in her craw, she thought that would be a good thing. Fakir had never talked to her about the ones that were gone, about Mytho or Rue or Tutu, which made her a little mad now that she thought about it, because, well, first off she missed them _too_, and so _what _if people thought Fakir was strange for talking to a duck? And there were _good _memories too: the time her voice had guided him out of the Legendary Oak; the night that they had driven back the Book Men and their horrible axes; the way Fakir had called her out of Drosselmeyer's narrative engine with the power of his writing; the _pas de deux_ that they had danced ...

"I wonder how it got into the lake?" he said as he tied a loop in the chain to shorten it. "There. It suits you." He lifted her up and then sat back in his chair with her in his lap, even though her feet were wet and muddy. "Hans invited us to visit," he said, stroking the feathers on her back once she'd settled down. "He says that Raetsel wants to name the baby Zura."

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It was a day and a half ride from Gold Crown Town to Hans and Raetsel's house, so they set out early on the chestnut mare they'd borrowed from Ebine. The morning was gray with a heavy cold rain, and Fakir was grumpy. Duck, who didn't mind cold and rain at all, nevertheless was happy to be snuggled inside Fakir's shirt. His stomach was a little softer than it had been when they were teenaged ballet students, but it was still solid and warm and reassuring, and between it and the rhythmic movement of the horse Duck felt herself drifting off to sleep.

And then, gradually, she became aware of a sensation both strange and familiar, a crampy, spinny, _bursting_ ...

The next instant she found herself on the ground, in the squishy mud at the side of the road. The horse was galloping away, whinnying in fear, and Fakir was on his back in the middle of the road, groaning.

"Fakir!" Duck heard what she had thought as if she had spoken. The words sounded scratchy, probably because there was something wound tight around her neck. She put her hand up to pull it away.

"I have hands!" she cried as Fakir sat up.

He looked dazed, but then he gaped at her and whispered, "What the — "

In that instant she looked down and realized that not only did she have hands, she had breasts and legs and a butt — which was finding the mud uncomfortably cold — but no clothes.

"Ack!" She pulled her knees up to her chest, but then re-thought this position as Fakir quickly looked away. She scrambled forward onto her hands and knees, then crouched down. "What happened?" she asked.

"How should I know?" Fakir shot back, sounding even more distressed. As he stood up Duck saw that the front of his shirt was entirely in shreds. She would have laughed at the sight, but the necklace's chain was now so tight around her neck it felt as though it was cutting into the skin of her throat. She put her hands under her hair (_her hair! she had hair again!)_ to undo the clasp on the necklace. Unfortunately, her muddy fingers didn't seem to know what to do with themselves, and almost instantly made a gooey clot of hair.

Fakir stumbled over to where his cloak had fallen. He picked it up and began to shake it out, looking up and down the road.

"What are you doing?" Duck croaked, trying to find where Fakir had tied the chain to make it shorter.

"Covering you up," Fakir growled, snapping the rain-soaked cloak so vehemently that Duck wouldn't have been surprised if the dye had flown out of the fabric. "Checking if anyone saw you. Figuring out where Ebine's horse went. Wondering if Raetsel will be upset when we postpone the visit. What are _you_ doing?"

"Necklace," Duck rasped. "Choking me."

Fakir came over. "Let me do it," he said impatiently. "Stop before you break it." He snapped the cloak out one more time and let it settle over her back.

"C-cold." Duck shivered.

"Well," Fakir said as he squatted down next to her and shoved her hair aside, "if you'd given me some warning you were going to stop being a duck I could have brought along something for you to wear." Now he was practically snarling. "Ermine-trimmed velvet." Whatever he was doing with the chain made it momentarily tighter. "What a mess," he said, but then the chain went slack and the pressure on her neck was gone.

"Hey, I had no idea I was going to ... _not be a duck!"_ How could this have happened? Yesterday she was happily swimming and eating and sleeping, and today she was naked and cold and being strangled by her necklace. "I wasn't trying to make a mess," Duck whispered as she rubbed her throat, feeling near tears.

"I know," Fakir said at last, to Duck's satisfaction sounding at least a little bit contrite. "I'll be back soon. Don't go anywhere."

"I won't," Duck said. It was strange, seeing wisps of hair — still orangey-red — at the sides of her vision again, and feeling the rounded mass of breasts against her thighs and arms ... although oddly she didn't feel bigger. Fakir, on the other hand ... for some strange reason, as she watched him walk away from her back toward Gold Crown Town, Fakir seemed much taller to her now than when she was an actual duck — which was ridiculous, because obviously he was the same size he'd been before, while she was at least ten times bigger. No, more like twenty or thirty!

Duck sighed. Her teachers had always told her she was terrible at math.

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"You can sleep anywhere, can't you?"

"Huh?" Duck looked up, squinting. Fakir — who was now wearing an untorn shirt — stood at the side of the road, holding a rumpled paper bag in one hand and the reins of a dappled horse in the other.

"That's not Ebine's horse," Duck said. "Where's Ebine's horse? Shouldn't we go look for Ebine's horse?"

"We're not that far out of the city," Fakir said. "I'm sure Ebine's horse knows how to get home." He held out the bag. "Here."

"What is that?" Duck asked, pulling the cloak around her as she stood. She wobbled a little, partly because her muscles were stiff and sore from crouching in the wet cold, and partly because her legs felt entirely too long.

"Clothes," Fakir said. He shook the bag at her. "Or did you want to ride back into town naked?"

"No," Duck sputtered, "of course not! But ... can't we just keep going?"

"Going? Going where?"

"To Raetsel's!"

Fakir raised an eyebrow. "You're joking. Something like this happens and you want to act as if ... as if nothing happened? Don't you even care that you're a — that you're not a duck anymore?"

"Of _course_ I care," Duck said, darting forward to snatch the bag, "but I was really looking forward to seeing Raetzel and Hans and the twins and baby Zura and right now I don't want to think about or talk about what's happened or why it happened or anything, _okay?" _ Why couldn't he understand how _upsetting_ this was? She hurried away from him to hide behind a clump of shoulder-high bushes. Turning her back, she shrugged the cloak back onto the bushes, then quickly opened the bag. "What are these?" she sqawked, turning to look at him. The clothes were faded and worn, with badly-mended holes in spots. "Where did they come from?"

"They're old things of mine," he said. "Don't worry, they're clean. I didn't want to risk — to take the time to go into the dress shop."

Duck imagined the scene: the shopkeeper's puzzled face as a red-faced Fakir tried to explain that he needed clothes for a naked woman 'about so big.' The mental picture made her giggle.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing."

"Well, hurry up!"

For some reason Duck found knowing she'd be wearing Fakir's clothes comforting, although as she pulled on the faded tunic she thought _This was against his skin once ... his chest, his arms, his shoulders._ As she put the trousers on she tried very hard not to think about how many times the fabric had slid over Fakir's thighs and his butt and his ... other things, but it was no good, and by the time she had put on the much-too large pair of boy's ballet flats her face felt like it was going to burst into flame. Which was silly, because she had seen Fakir's legs and butt and ... the bump from what the dance belt held a hundred — no, probably a _thousand_ — times in class without having thoughts like this about his body. Maybe it was because in class it was all posture and foot position and armlines and _ballon_ and extension? No, it couldn't be just that, because she'd never had such thoughts as a duck, either. Fakir was always just Fakir, not 'naked Fakir with clothes on.' She pulled at the cloak, but the bushes had thorns, and the cloak snagged and started to tear. "Stupid cloak!" Why did she always have such bad ideas?

"What are you doing?"

"I totally wasn't thinking!" Duck said, then, "It's stuck."

Fakir stared at her a moment. "Leave it," he said. "Let's go."

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They arrived at the inn just after moonrise, hours after the evening meal. From the outside the inn's candlelit windows had looked homey and inviting, but the common room was empty and there was no one at the desk. "Is there anyone here?" Duck asked. She was exhausted, and couldn't wait to collapse for the night without any more fuss.

It was not to be. When the old couple running the inn finally appeared, for some reason they seemed to assume that Fakir and Duck were newlyweds who had been 'robbed and roughed up,' as they put it. Duck had been about to correct their mistake when Fakir said wearily, "Yes, it's been a _very_ long day."

"You poor darlings," the innkeeper's wife said, clucking like a hen. "I'll bring up a cold supper right away, so as not to interrupt you ... _later."_

"And the room's on us," the innkeeper had said as he handed Fakir a key. "Upstairs and to the left." He'd winked. "Honeymoon suite."

"Very generous of you," Fakir had said faintly.

"Fakir!" Duck whispered as they climbed the stairs. "I feel like we're taking advantage of them, since we're not really —"

"It made them happy to help us," Fakir hissed back as they walked to the end of the hall. "I wasn't about to ask them to give us _two_ rooms." He unlocked the door.

It was small, for a suite, but the bed was very large. "Don't worry, I'll sleep here," Fakir grumbled as he sat down in a low upholstered chair next to the bed.

"Why are you being so mean and crabby?" Duck demanded.

Before Fakir could answer there was a discreet knock on the door. "Room service!"

Duck opened the door. The innkeeper's wife had a wicker basket over one arm, and carried a covered tray. "Here's your supper, as promised!" she chirped, setting the tray on the small table near the window seat. "I also brought you some clothes that my daughter never wore, and some handmade apple soap, and a comb." She chuckled. "Looks like you have a year's worth of tangles in that hair!"

Duck clapped her hands, then took the basket. "Thank you so much!"

"Such a sweet girl," the innkeeper's wife said, patting Duck's cheek. "You make sure and sleep as late as you like tomorrow, alright? Poor dear, such an awful thing to happen!" With a warm glance at Fakir she left.

"Quack," Duck said experimentally to Fakir after the innkeeper's wife had left. "Quack quack _quack,"_ — but when she didn't turn into a duck she turned on her heel and went to take her bath.

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Duck emerged one long, hot bath later in a much better mood. She was clean, there was no more mud in her hair, and the cotton nightgown that had been in the bottom of the basket was not only new, but more importantly belonged to a stranger.

Fakir was sleeping in the chair.

Duck frowned: he'd have a sore back in the morning if he stayed there all night, but he'd probably bite her head off if she woke him and suggested he sleep in the bed. Which was silly, because it wasn't a big deal, was it? After all, it was a very big bed, you could probably fit three or four people in it. And even if it had been smaller, she and Fakir had known each other for years — granted, for most of those years she had been a duck, but still, that had to count for something — and she knew Fakir would be a gentleman, but ...

She tiptoed to the end of the bed and sat, combing the knots from her wet hair.

Fakir's head was tilted back and his mouth was open just a little. _Like a sleeping princess waiting for a kiss,_ Duck thought, and grinned, and then felt embarrassed for having such a thought, and then decided that there was nothing wrong with thinking that way, she was a grown woman now, and ... No, it probably wasn't good to think that way, not when Fakir had spent the past seven years seeing her as his pet duck. Still, no harm in looking, was there? He had a very nice face when he wasn't scowling: with his eyes closed you could see how long his eyelashes were. Not as long as Mytho's had been, of course, but then Mytho had been impossibly beautiful, with those sad eyes and gossamer hair and soft, musical voice ... Duck sighed a little, remembering. She had had _such_ a crush on Mytho when she was young! No, Fakir certainly wasn't what you'd call beautiful, and his voice was too growly to be called musical even when he was being extra nice, but he was real. Mytho had been like an angel — and you couldn't live in heaven.

Fakir opened his eyes. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Um ... thinking about Mytho?" Duck said, tugging at a tough tangle of hair.

"I see." He shifted in the chair, sitting up straighter. "Go up from the bottom, like climbing stairs."

"Of what?"

"Your hair," he said. "Combing down from the top pushes everything together and makes it worse. "

"Who made you an expert?" she asked.

"Raetsel," he said, and held his hand out.

A little surprised that he was serious, she gave him the comb. "Do you think I changed back into a girl because someone fixed Drosselmeyer's machine?"

Fakir, who had moved to sit behind her at the foot of the bed, said, "There isn't anyone who knows how to do that." He started combing through the ends of her hair.

"Not even Autor?" Duck asked.

The combing stopped for a moment. "I don't know," he said curtly.

Duck could tell that the question had made him mad, but she was pretty sure he wasn't mad at her. "I guess we'll find out when we get back."

"Yes, we will." Fakir was combing the middle third of her hair, where all the tangles were, but he was gentle, rarely pulling hard enough to hurt. "Do you _want_ to go back to being a duck?" he asked.

"I don't know," Duck said. "Being a duck is definitely less complicated. Eat, sleep, swim."

Fakir made a soft noise, which Duck thought could have been laughter.

"And I suppose feathers take a lot less work to look nice than hair does," she said, and this time she was certain that Fakir was laughing.

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_._

3 Aug 2014


	2. Chapter of Taking Flight

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In the end it was simple. When Fakir started to go back to the chair Duck told him, "Don't sleep in the chair, sleep in the bed. If you don't, I'll sleep in the bathtub." In her head it had sounded like a reasonable threat, but as soon as she said it she realized there was no way it would persuade him. _Sleep in the bathtub if you want,_ he'd say. _I don't care._

However, to her surprise Fakir got up, sat on the side of the bed closest to the chair, pulled off his shoes, and lay atop the coverlet with his back to her — all without a peep.

Duck put her hands on her hips. "You'll be cold if you don't get under the covers!"

"I'll be fine," he mumbled.

She glared at him for a while, but when this had no effect she walked around to the other side of the bed, pulled back the coverlet and the blankets, and slid between the sheets.

It was infuriating. He was so inconsistent! One minute he was lending her his clothes, walking so that she could ride the horse, combing her hair — and the next he was acting as if she had a contagious disease! Pique always used to say that boys weren't worth the bother: Duck had a feeling that this still applied when boys became men.

Men also breathed too loud, she decided as she put the pillow over her ears and tried to sleep.

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It took her a moment when she woke to remember who she was, what she was, and then she hopped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. (Yet another thing that was less bother as a duck!) She realized when she came out that Fakir wasn't in the room. From the look of the bed he'd slept on top of the coverlet all night.

So, so stubborn.

She donned the old tunic and leggings — determinedly ignoring distracting thoughts and sensations — and went downstairs.

The common room was empty. Duck saw a collection of crumpled balls of paper and a mug of coffee on a small table near the window. She smoothed out one of the crumpled pages: there were several lines, written and then lined through.

_ . . . . A simple change of perspective _

_ . . . . Everything was inverted _

_ . . . . Just as the inn, which the night before  
had seemed overwhelmed by the darkness of the forest,  
the tiny flames of the candles in its windows frail and easily snuffed out,  
was this morning nestling in the embrace of the sunlight  
pouring through the small windows, so his feelings for her had_

"Sleep well?"

Startled, Duck looked up: the innkeeper's wife. "Um ... er ... yes. Where's — "

She beamed. "He's outside in the stable with Mstislav."

"Oh." Stable? Why was Fakir in the stable?

"Would you like breakfast before you go?"

"Um ... sure." After the innkeeper's wife had hurried away, Duck uncrumpled another page. It had only one line, which ended in a blob of ink:

_. . . . Her hair was like silk in his hands. How could he •_

"What are you doing!" Fakir yanked the paper out of her hand. "Don't read that!"

"S-sorry!" Duck sputtered, watching as he gathered up all the crumpled pages and took them to the fireplace. "I didn't know where you were."

"I was paying to use one of their horses for a few days," Fakir said, stirring the pages into the coals until they caught fire.

"But we _have_ a horse," Duck said, then realized that Fakir had been on foot all day yesterday while she rode. It must have been very tiring, especially since he'd had to catch her every time she started to fall off the horse. "It sure was a lot easier when you could carry me inside your shirt or in that saddle-basket, wasn't it?"

"I don't mind walking," Fakir said, giving the fire a final poke before dusting the ash from his hands, "but renting the horse was the only way to repay Mstislav and Estelli for the room."

Duck's chest hurt with a sudden gush of feeling. "You're a really good person, Fakir."

"Don't sound so surprised," he said sourly (but he kept his face turned away from her, and she suspected he was pleased). "We should get going."

"She's bringing us breakfast," Duck said.

"It better not be free," Fakir said. He came back to the table, gathered up the sheaf of blank paper and the pen. "I don't like owing people."

"But you said last night that since it makes them happy to help —"

"They're supposed to be running a business," Fakir said. "They can't make a profit if they give everything away."

"You know, when you wear a cranky face all the time it makes it hard to tell when you're actually cranky," Duck said.

Fakir looked like he was readying a sharp comeback, but just then Estelli bustled into the room with a platter of moonberry pancakes drizzled with peach cream and a bowl of whistlebird-egg souffle, and all discussion ceased in favor of eating.

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It was another hour before they left, however. Estelli insisted that Duck take one of her daughter's frocks to wear, and Duck didn't feel she could refuse. They went upstairs to the daughter's old bedroom, where Estelli brought out at least twenty outfits, each reeking of mothbane, and each of them with a story of how it had been made or where it had been worn. Duck realized that the old couple must be very lonely out here in the middle of the forest, with their children grown and off doing other things, and so she listened to the stories as she tried on the dresses and put all thought of how impatient Fakir must be becoming out of her head. After she finally chose a dark jacket with puffy sleeves, a long twirly skirt with white trim, a blouse with leaf embroidery, and a pair of soft boots, she continued to ask question after question as they returned to the common room.

"Is business good?"

"Well, this is the main route to the capital," Estelli said as they crossed the room to where Fakir and Mstislav were waiting. "A few years back there were some strange rumors about travelers disappearing down the road, but I haven't heard much of that lately. We get more guests every year."

"It must be a lot of work for two people," Duck said. "Running an inn."

"We manage," Mstislav said. "Momma keeps saying we should retire, now, but ... it keeps us busy."

"You're just afraid that if it wasn't for the inn I'd be pestering you to kiss me all day long!" Estelli added boisterously.

"Stelli!" the old man said, covering his face in mock horror.

After that Duck couldn't think of anything else to say, and so she and Fakir said goodbye and set out for Raetsel and Hans' house.

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They rode in silence for an hour. Fakir had his brooding face on, and Duck had a feeling it was because of what he'd been trying to write at the inn. The crumpled-up pages suggested that he had been struggling. But in her opinion an hour was enough time to brood, and so she tried to start a conversation by remarking that she found the innkeeper's horse much easier to ride than Ebine's dappled gray.

Fakir replied that they ought to pick up the pace to make up lost time, and urged his horse into a canter that made talking difficult.

Duck accepted that he needed to stew a while longer, but once the horses had slowed back to an ambling walk she tried again. "So, you were working on a story back there?"

"Trying to." Refusing to look at her, he kept his eyes focused on the empty road ahead.

She wasn't going to be discouraged by his lack of talking. "Is it for someone in Gold Crown Town?"

"Yes."

"You're having problem with it?"

Fakir answered with a small shrug.

"Is that the first time you've tried writing outside of Gold Crown Town?"

He clenched his jaw, but finally said, "Yes."

"Maybe I can help you."

"I don't think so."

"Sometimes having a good listener helps you sort things out," Duck said.

Fakir looked at her a little sharply, but he didn't say anything.

"Well," Duck said firmly, "I'm here if you need me."

They rode for a half-mile before Fakir said, "Thank you."

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The road left the forest at last and sliced through bright green fields and farms, squiggled around small hills, and finally began to climb up to a plateau whose perimeter was edged with tall shining walls and even taller and shinier towers. Duck was gawping so much she barely noticed when Fakir took the reins from her and led her horse through the streets.

They stopped in front of a small bakery where two small boys were playing a pebble game.

"Uncle Fakir!" the boys shouted excitedly. "Momma! Poppa! Uncle Fakir is here." A moment later Hans, wearing an apron and a flour-dusted clothes, came outside. "Raetsel will be a moment, she's putting Zura down for a nap," he said, giving Fakir a hug. He turned to Duck. "Are you the young lady I met at Karon's the day I came for Raetsel?"

Duck nodded.

"Of course she is," Raetsel said as she came down the stairs. "How could anyone forget such lovely red hair?"

The rest of the day flew by at _allegro giocoso_ pace, full of children's laughter and delicious baked goods and affectionate teasing. By the time the seven of them crowded around the dining table in the cozy apartment above the bakery, Duck felt as though she had been one of the family for years. She and Fakir played the pebble game with the twins until the two boys fell asleep at the table; then, after Hans and Fakir carried the sleeping boys off to their beds, Duck washed the dishes while Raetsel sat and nursed baby Zura.

"So," Raetsel asked quietly. "You and Fakir have been sharing a house for the past seven years?"

"Yes," Duck said, "But, well ... it's complicated." She couldn't very well say _I was under a spell, and until yesterday I was a bird._

"We didn't know what to make of it," Raetsel said, shifting the baby to her shoulder and gently patting her back. "When we'd read Fakir's letters ... well, sometimes we thought the 'Duck' he was talking about was a person, and sometimes we thought it was an actual duck."

"It's kinda both," Duck said. It wasn't actually a lie, she thought; it just had been true at different times.

"Well, I'm relieved to know that Fakir isn't in love with a pet." Baby Zura yawned, and Raetsel stood. "I'll be back," she said, then began humming a lullaby as she carried the baby out of the room and down the hall.

Duck was stunned. _In love?_

.

Fakir and Hans were sitting outside. The street was peaceful, the darkness warmed by the sound of crickets and by light from the occasional unshuttered window.

When Duck appeared Hans knocked out his pipe, offered Duck his spot on the bench, and then went inside.

"Rae and Hans seem so happy," Duck said.

"Yes, they do." Fakir was staring off toward city's center, which glowed in the distance with dozens of crystal spires.

There was an awkward silence, filled with the far-off barking of a dog.

"The baby is so cute," Duck said.

"Yes, she is."

"They named her after Uzura?"

"Seems like."

"And the twins are getting so big!"

"What are you getting at?"

Fakir had asked so calmly that the question took Duck entirely by surprise: ever since her change most of their conversations had felt like verbal tug-of-war. "I don't know," she said. "Yesterday I was a duck. My plans involved finding the right size pebbles to eat. Now I guess I'm ... a woman."

"And now your plan is — what? To get married and have children?"

"Not necessarily." She folded her arms. "Is that what you want?"

He shrugged. "Maybe."

"That's not very romantic."

"The time for romance will be after we figure out why you're not a duck anymore," Fakir said.

"You keep saying that," Duck said. "I think you liked me better as a duck!"

"Maybe I did," Fakir snapped. It was too dark to see his expression, but she was sure he had his sour frowning face on.

"So it's settled then!" Duck said. "If I turn back into a duck we'll both be happier!"

"If you say so."

"Ugh!" Duck jumped off the bench. "You are so — you're so annoying!"

"I'm not the one — "

"Do you know what it's like to think the things I think and feel the things I feel while I'm stuck inside the body of a duck?" Duck said, unable to stop herself. "To never be able to talk or — " She noticed just then that her necklace, the one she'd found at the bottom of the pond, had started to glow with a pale green light. "But if you like me better that way, _fine!_ I'll go back to being a duck!"

Fakir was staring at the necklace as well. "No," he said. Even though the light was faint, Duck saw that he looked guilty and ashamed. "I gave my word I'd stay by your side no matter what, but all I've thought about for the past seven years is how much ... how much I wished that there was a way to re-create the power of Tutu's necklace, without re-creating Drosselmeyer's misery."

"Tutu's necklace?" There was a lump in Duck's throat, a painful lump. "So you want _Princess Tutu_ back."

"Idiot," Fakir said. "Who did I call out of Drosselmeyer's machine? Not Tutu. _you._ Who did I dance the _pas de deux_ with? Not Tutu. _you._ I didn't — I _don't_ — want Tutu back, I want Duck. Clumsy, stubborn, chatterbox Duck." He put his hand out, as if he were going to touch her, and then pulled it back. "Kind-hearted, courageous Duck."

The necklace dimmed.

"I — why did I tell you that?" Fakir said. "I never wanted to admit any of that to you!"

"Why not?"

Fakir put his head in his hands.

"Well," Duck said, "if it makes you feel any better, I have more to confess. The worst part of being a duck," she said, feeling a surge of exhilaration, "has been that no matter how often I wanted to, I couldn't ever do this." She pulled his hand, his writing hand, to her and traced the scar from the night he had stabbed himself to prevent Drosselmeyer's story from killing her ... and then she bent and kissed the scar. "I loved you," she said, holding his hand against her face, "even before that night at the bottom of the Lake of Despair."

"Duck," he whispered, leaning toward her. She tilted her face to meet his as he put his arm around her shoulder, resting her fingertips on the side of his neck as his lips touched hers. She felt a silvery light arc through her from her throat to her thighs, as if a spotlight had suddenly blazed inside her, piercing and yet not painful, and as Fakir continued kissing her, lightly, over and over, her lips, the corner of her mouth, her cheek, then along her neck it felt like the most beautiful choreography she had ever danced. When his lips moved to brush the curve of her ear the sound and warmth of his breath stirred an urgency in her, made her want to hold him closer, to touch more of him; as she twined her fingers into his hair, the tingle between her legs bloomed into something stronger, and their kisses became less delicate. When Fakir tentatively moved his hand to gently press the side of her breast she felt such a surge of pleasure it was as if she were beginning to soar...

And then he pulled away, rested his forehead against hers. "Sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean to ..."

"I'm not sorry," she said. "I'm glad." She smiled. "I certainly never felt anything like _that_ as a duck."

He looked up at the night sky. "It's late. We should go inside."

Duck knew what he meant, but she didn't want to move: she wanted to savor this moment of their first kiss to the fullest, memorize as many details about it, before any other moments came along. "No, let's stay out here a little longer," she said. "Just be my knight, and protect me from the cold."

.

The sky was just beginning to lighten in the east when she awoke to find herself stretched out on the bench, covered with a blanket and with a pile of dishtowels for a pillow. Fakir sat on the ground next to her, sleeping with his head on his arm. Duck lightly stroked his hair, and had fallen deep into a contemplative state when Hans opened the door of the bakery and came outside, bringing a swirl of delicious baking-bread smell with him. "Morning," he said. "You know, we made up cots for you in the house."

"I know," Duck said. "We were up so late talking, we just ... fell asleep."

"So we heard," Hans said, "Our bedroom is that window up there." He fit a brass handle into a round plaque next to the bakery window, then turned it until an awning, accompanied by subdued metal-screeching and canvas-flapping, unfolded from above the bakery's street level window and stretched out over the street.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Duck said, as Fakir raised his head and blearily looked around.

"Not to worry," Hans said, pulling the brass handle from the wall and tucking it into a pocket of his apron. "Bakers get up early to turn the dough over." He grinned, then nodded at Fakir. "You two worked things out?"

"Yes," Duck said. Hans' acknowledgement refreshed her happiness.

"Raetsel will will be happy to hear that," Hans said. "She likes happy endings." He went back inside.

Fakir stood and stretched, and then they tiptoed sheepishly through the bakery and upstairs to the apartment's tiny sitting room. Raetsel set steaming mugs of coffee and a tray of sweet rolls before them and then hurried downstairs to help Hans open the shop.

"I've been thinking," Fakir said as he sipped his coffee. "I don't think it's coincidence that you found that necklace the day before we left."

Duck touched the necklace, remembering how it had glowed before they had confessed their hidden feelings the night before. "You mean it might be magic, like Tutu's necklace was?"

Fakir nodded. "Maybe. Tell me everything you can remember about it. How did you know it was in the pond?"

"I saw it glittering ... I think." She rubbed her forehead with her hand. How could she already be forgetting her duck memories?

"When you put it on, did you feel anything?"

"No, until just before I changed I felt the same as always."

Fakir nodded. "It happened as we passed the Gold Crown Town city limits." Fakir took another sip of coffee. "Have you taken the necklace off since you found it?"

Duck thought for a moment. "No ... I didn't even take it off when I took my bath at the inn." She bit her lip. "Should I take it off now and see what happens?" She didn't want to: not just because she was worried that taking it off would make her a duck — the way taking off Tutu's bnecklace had — but also because she was worried that taking it off would somehow _break_ the magic, that she'd stay a duck even if she put it back on.

Fakir looked apprehensive as well, as if he was thinking the same things. "You don't have to," he said.

"No," she said decisively, "we can't live in fear." She undid the clasp and let the necklace fall into her lap ... which she happily realized she still had. She hadn't changed.

Fakir exhaled in relief. "So it _is_ different," he said.

"Getting wet didn't change me either," Duck reminded him. "Or quacking." She pinched off a piece of sweet roll, and nibbled. "It's a mystery."

"Although..." Fakir was looking thoughtfully at Duck's necklace.

"What?"

"I've always wondered why, when you finally decided to give the last heart shard to Mytho, you stayed a girl after you took off Tutu's necklace."

"That's true!" Duck said. "I didn't change back into a duck until just before the final battle!" She was having a thought: it was still swimming up from the murk, but it was coming closer and becoming clearer. "Drosselmeyer kept reminding me that it was the only thing letting me be a girl instead of a duck," she said slowly, "but what if Drosselmeyer was lying?"

Fakir looked astonished. "Of course! He _said_ you were a duck brought into the story, and that his necklace was what allowed you to be a girl, but what proof is there that everything he said was true and not twisted?"

"So maybe I've been a girl all along," Duck said, elated. "I don't know why I didn't think of that before now! What if I was a girl enchanted to _think_ she was a duck enchanted to be a girl?" She felt as though she would float off the bench. "Or ... wait! Didn't Autor tell you that if a talespinner was powerful enough, they could affect the whole world? What if all of this is still part of Drosselmeyer's story? What if I'm only a duck who thinks she's a girl who was enchanted to become a duck who could become a girl?" Now she felt like the ground was heaving and whirling. "Maybe this green necklace just reversed what Drosselmeyer did! Maybe inside the city I'm my real self, a duck, and outside it I'm enchanted!"

Fakir took her hand. "Breathe, Duck, breathe," he said. "Forget these what ifs and maybes. You've been a duck inside the city for years without the pendant, haven't you?"

Duck sighed. "I guess so."

"And don't forget how much Drosselmeyer loved to see people suffer," Fakir said. "Telling you that you were just a duck he'd brought into the story, making you think your true self was a bird, and that you could never hope for anything more — he must have said all that just to make you more miserable." He clenched his fist. "He was as cruel a monster as the Raven. Crueler, even."

"You're right!" Duck said. "I saw people entering the story turn into animals all the time! There was a family whose mother became a rhinoceros."

"And the Eleki Troupe's manager," Fakir said. "Which means — " Fakir's smile faded.

"Which means what?"

"It's possible," Fakir said reluctantly, "that your change had nothing to do with the necklace. It might be because you went outside the perimeter of Drosselmeyer's residual magic."

"So when we go back ... " Duck clapped her hand over her mouth, horrified at the rest of that thought, and ran downstairs so that Fakir wouldn't have to see her crying.

.

Raetsel was standing at the stove in the bakery's kitchen, stirring a pot of honeyrose custard filling while she nursed Baby Zura. "Good morning," she said. "Hans said that you and Fakir —" She glanced at Duck and then did a double take. "What's wrong?"

"Everything," Duck said, collapsing onto a kitchen chair, putting her head down on the table, and letting her tears go.

"Oh, sweetie!" Raetsel moved the pot to a back burner, then hurried to Duck and put an arm around her. "What happened?"

"It — won't — make — any — sense!" Duck managed between gulping sobs.

"Try me," Raetsel said gently.

"I'm under a spell," Duck said, lifting her head and wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "Outside Gold Crown Town, I'm human. Inside the town, I'm a duck. A real duck. A bird."

Zura made a happy gurgling sound and waved her hands at Duck's pendant.

"A ... spell? You mean like a _magic_ spell?" Raetsel got up to fetch a clean dishtowel for Duck to dry her tears with instead of her sleeve. "But ... you weren't a duck when I first met you." She sounded puzzled.

"I used to have a special necklace," Duck said. "It gave me the illusion of being a real girl."

"But ... you _are,_ Duck. You are real." Raetsel stood, jiggling the increasingly fretful Zura. "Shush, shush, shush," she whispered to the baby as she went back to the stove.

"Here, I'll take her," Duck offered.

Raetsel turned to look at her, and Duck could see that she was fearful. And who wouldn't be after hearing something like that, someone claiming that they were really a duck? No wonder Raetsel didn't want to let Duck hold Zura. "I don't suppose it helps if I told you that the necklace also changed me into Princess Tutu," Duck mumbled.

Raetsel's expression melted into astonishment and gratitude. "Princess Tutu was real? Princess Tutu was _you?"_

"Sort of," Duck said. "It wasn't so much me as the power of the heart-shard in the necklace."

"I ... I always thought all that was a horrible dream," Raetsel said, now handing Zura to Duck without reservation. She sat down. "It was like something out of a nightmare, or a fairy tale!"

Duck, watching Zura explore the green stone with pudgy fingers, said, "No, there are places where stories like that can become real."

"Talespinning," Raetsel said. "Is that why Fakir stays in Gold Crown Town? Is that what he's doing?"

Duck nodded. "But he does it to help people, not turn them into puppets and hurt them. He wants to fix all the bad things his ancestor Drosselmeyer did."

"What does the necklace you have on now do?" Raetsel asked.

"I don't think it does anything, really," Duck said. "It's just pretty." She knew then what she had to do. She wasn't going to make Fakir give up talespinning and live somewhere else; no, she was going to have to go back to being a duck.

_Choose,_ not-Edel had said.

There was a faint snap, and the chain slithered from around Duck's neck and into Zura's greedy grasp.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Raetsel said. "We'll get that repaired right away."

"No, it's okay," Duck said. "Zura can have it. I don't need it."

.

"So I was thinking," Fakir said to Hans at the noon meal, "that I might buy a small place here in the capital." He sounded unusually cheerful, but he'd avoided Duck all morning by disappearing for a walk — and he wasn't meeting her gaze now.

"That would be great!" Hans said, "I could certainly use an extra hand in the bakery, if you wanted to pick up a little extra money whenever you visit."

Duck said nothing. She caught Raetsel's eye, and they exchanged an understanding look.

"You know," Hans said, tearing up a piece of bread and dropping it into his stew, "I have some special pearl-frosted roses left over from a wedding cake that I did for the governor's wedding." He was apparently oblivious to the expressions of the women. "I'm sure there's time for a ceremony this afternoon before you leave."

"Is that so?" Fakir said, finally looking straight at Duck, as if daring her to object.

"Hans," Raetsel said quickly, "I think Zura is crying. Come with me to check on her. Bring the twins."

"What? Huh?" Hans, thoroughly confused, nevertheless scooped up the twins and followed Raetsel out of the room.

"What happened to you?" Duck demanded as soon as Raetsel and Hans had left. "Get married? Did you suddenly turn into Mr. Cat?"

"You implied the other night that I wasn't romantic enough."

"I — well, even if I did, we can't get married now! When we get back to Gold Crown Town everyone will call you The Man Married to a Duck!"

"Even if we do go back to Gold Crown Town," Fakir said. "we don't know for sure that will happen."

Duck gaped at him. "_If _we go back? So you're going to put your gift on the shelf next to Drosselmeyer's inkwell?"

"Even if I can't talespin anywhere else — and we don't know that for certain — I've had seven good years in Gold Crown Town," Fakir said. "I've probably repaired as much of Drosselmeyer's damage as can be undone. There don't seem to be many more stories there that want to be written."

"I won't let you give up talespinning just so that I can be human!" She could accept the responsibility of determining her own fate, but not Fakir's.

"Well, I can't write if the price is you sacrificing your humanity!" Fakir stabbed at his stew with his fork. "Unless you've gone back to preferring the simplicity of a duck's life? Or is it that you want to strike out on your own, go off and have adventures?"

"I don't know!" Duck said. "Is that what you want? For me to leave you?"

"It's up to you," he said.

"Well, what if I want to choose something that makes both us happy?" Duck said. "I'm just ... I'm really worried that I'll mess up. That I'll pick what seems best now, and then find out later that it wasn't really the best."

Fakir put down his fork and folded his arms. "And what if you could see into the future, know everything that's going to happen, know how everything is going to turn out? Maybe that would make some things easier, but to me it's also like opening a book and reading only the last line."

Duck slouched in her chair. "I don't want to skip ahead, I just want to know I'm making the best choice."

"Sometimes I write a sentence wrong ninety-nine times before I get it right," Fakir said. "But the hundredth sentence couldn't have come into being without the ninety-nine that came before. Finding the right ending for a story almost always takes searching through the wrong ones."

"How do you know when you've found the right one?"

"Because something ... a blast of something goes through me. The words fall into place, and suddenly there's a feeling of ... completion, and everything that I wrote for the story up to that point has more — " Fakir waved his hand. "I can't find the words to explain it."

Duck pretended to be horrified. "You can't find the words? Give up your talespinner license at once!"

"Very funny."

She could hear Hans and Raetsel talking softly down the hall. "At least _they_ didn't have to go through too many wrong endings."

"What was the best part of being a duck?" Fakir asked. "Swimming? Flying?"

"Simplicity," she said. "Freedom and simplicity." She stood. "Alright, I've decided."

.

In the end, Hans lent Fakir his best suit to wear (although it was almost comically loose) and Raetsel helped Duck pick out a pale green dress, a lace shawl, silky white stockings, and pale green slippers. After that the four of them went to the Registrar of Nuptials, who quite sternly informed them that, as this was the last license he had time to prepare that the day, if they had second thoughts they'd best come back the following morning. Duck took Fakir's arm, and together they lit a candle, planted a seedling, and shared a pledge-cup. Once the officiator had pronounced them man and wife they went back to the bakery, where Hans brought out a small heart-shaped cake decorated with pearl-frosted roses that he "miraculously" had on hand.

After drinking several toasts and promising to visit more often, Fakir and Duck changed into travelling clothes and urged the horses toward home. They covered the distance from the capital to Mstisalv and Estelli's in only a few hours, arriving just before sunset. Declining to stay the night, they changed horses, and then rode on through the night to Gold Crown Town.

The night was chill, but the sky was cloudless and the road was lit by a nearly full moon. As they neared the boundary where Duck had changed they saw Fakir's cloak still on the bushes, already ragged from the birds who had pulled out threads for their nests.

As Fakir hitched the horses to a sapling, Duck stood on the road, unable to make herself move forward. _Please let us be wrong,_ she prayed. _Please. _"What if our children are ... what if they have webbed feet? Or feathers?" Duck asked.

"One thing at a time," Fakir said, coming to stand beside her.

"Well, here goes!" Duck said, and marched forward. She felt herself falling as she crossed the invisible border, felt the green dress and the shawl billow down around her, felt the stockings slide away and then pool on the ground.

She turned around and quacked mournfully at the sight of Fakir in the moonlight, kneeling by her clothes.

"We'll live outside the city," he said hoarsely. "Wherever you want."

She flew past him, away from the city, and touched down gracefully just as she transformed. "No," she said. "_My_ choice, remember?"

"Yes, your choice," Fakir agreed, but it broke Duck's heart to see how his eyes were brimming. "Wherever you go, I will follow."

"My love," Duck said. She kissed him one last time (and it was sweeter than anything in the world), then turned and walked back toward the line, knowing that in a moment Fakir would be able to scoop her up, tuck her inside his shirt, and take her home.

And at that moment, for just an instant, above them vast joyous wings spread wide in triumph, covering the night sky with pinions of light.

.

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_The End_

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7 Oct 2014


	3. Epilogue

It is her favorite thing to do, to swim in the pond while Fakir sits and works nearby. She is with Fakir, and they are happy. Somehow he has found more stories that need writing in Gold Crown Town, and he tells her that as of late he sometimes only needs to write a sentence forty-nine times to have it turn out right.

Every day when she is done swimming he meets her at the water's edge with a robe, and then they go inside and sit by the fire. As he combs the tangles from her long wet red hair he tells her what he's written that day, or the sentences that are giving him difficulty, or asks what she thinks of various endings. She mostly listens: she knows she is neither the spinner nor the thread, but she has come to think of herself as the spindle, and those times when something she says makes him rush to the desk and bend low over the paper (still wielding his pen like a rapier) she smiles and sits very still until he puts down his pen and sits back with a sigh.

On the days when Fakir is not writing they work in the garden, or visit friends, or simply walk hand in hand around Gold Crown Town, marvelling at the changes. Fakir occasionally teaches a dance class at the school, and has from time to time coaxed her to be his partner for demonstrations.

When the sun goes down they always return home. They undress each other by the fire, slowly, each hand's-breadth of skin revealed honored with a kiss: shoulder, breast, the small of the back, the hollow of the hip. She loves the way his breathing changes as she pulls his belt free and unbuttons his trousers, and she loves the way he always saves her stockings for last, rolling them down so slowly — along the way adoring her thighs, her knees, her calves, her ankles — that by the time he pulls the silky fabric from her feet she feels like a hatchling struggling to be born ... and every time, as he reverently kisses the triangle of downy red feathers, caressing and teasing until she arches her back, she once again bursts her shell and takes flight..

.

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**Author's Notes:**

Character names were spelled as they appear in the DVD credits.

The opening is a fusion/variant of Swan Prince/Swan Princess folktales with the tale of the Knight and the Loathsome Lady. In some versions of the latter, such as the one told by the Lady of Bath in _The Canterbury Tales,_ the hag offers the knight the choice of a wife who is beautiful and unfaithful, or a wife who is ugly and faithful. In almost all versions of the tale, however, the resolution is the same: the knight is rewarded for acknowledging female sovereignty and agency by letting the hag choose what she wants to be.

Tree symbolism: "Birch tree meanings include new beginnings and cleansing of the past. Birch trees are also associated with vision quests. Ash trees symbolize sacrifice, sensitivity and higher awareness. Cedar tree meanings include healing, cleansing and protection."

I did a fair amount of reading about ducks for this story, but I will not contest anyone who accuses me of inaccurate duck-portrayal. For example, although I learned that ducks apparently poop every 7 to 12 minutes, I chose not to work that fact into the story. There is accuracy, and then there is _accuracy._

A thank you to **Pi** and **ypsilon42** for German advice, and to my beta.

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26 Aug 2014 2014


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